


Under Glass

by jellyfishline



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Angst, Experimental Style, Gen, Roses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 07:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4821419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellyfishline/pseuds/jellyfishline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are benefits to being caged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Glass

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I should put spoiler warning on this. There's not really any spoilers in it, per se, but Anthy's whole character is kind of a spoiler. Plus, I just don't see how any of this would make sense if you haven't seen the show in its entirety. Actually it probably won't make sense then either. Surrealism is fun.
> 
> So, uh, consider this your warning. Spoilers for obscure 90's anime ahead!

That night, Anthy has a dream. It takes her by surprise. She had forgotten that she could still dream.

In it, she is standing on a cliff. Her feet are sore, her shoulders weary, yet she does not fall. Beneath her are all the stars and constellations of the sky. They shimmer for her. Beckon. She thinks of jumping. She thinks, the stars are her birthplace. Surely they will welcome her home.

In the morning she wakes. The rain taps softly on the sunny window, and others sleep soundly in their earthy beds. She remembers what she should not have forgotten: there is no place in Heaven for a fallen star.

***

Akio samples the roses of her greenhouse. His teeth draw tight around the tender petal, bite; his nose wrinkles in distaste. He does not seem to understand that roses, while they may be edible, are not meant to be eaten.

“You’ve done such a good job with them, Anthy,” he says, and cups her chin, forcing her to swallow his praise.

“So you say, brother,” she says.

She has tried to kill the roses before. She has dashed them to the roots and tore the leaves down perforated veins. She has let the insects fly like Exodus. They do not die. They always climb and cling to her arms, surge to press their fragile bosoms into her unkind palms. Such foolishness.

They do not die. It’s possible that her memories of killing them are false. They may be only dreams.

She claws her fingers in the soil. The earth sighs, the air pulls a humid breath across her neck. In this glass case, she is queen. She holds death in her right hand and rain in her left. She is servant and served. The roses take such time of hers to nurture, but they only bloom for her.

This beauty is for her alone.

***

That night, Utena has a dream.

“I was dueling with Chu Chu,” she says. “But I can’t remember what we were fighting for.”

“How interesting, Utena-sama,” Anthy replies. Utena sighs and stretches. Her long arms seem to brush the sky like branches, her hair a foamy canopy of leaves. Anthy blinks and the beauty disappears, leaving an ordinary girl in its place.

“Do you think it will rain?” Utena asks. She turns her face to the window, eyes searching the clouds. “There’s something in the air, isn’t there?”

How unlike her, to sense something amiss. Utena has never been one for reading the air.

“If you say so, Utena-sama,” Anthy says. She pours the tea. The steam crawls up to fog her glasses. She blinks, but the heavy gray remains.

Utena takes her cup. There’s fierceness in her delicate grip.

“I wonder what will happen today,” she murmurs. Her hands are still to Anthy’s eye, yet subtly, the surface of her tea shakes. Invisible earthquakes capsize the fragile edges of her china cup, a threat with every shiver.

“Not one among us can say,” Anthy says. Utena doesn’t hear her. She taps a foot on the floorboards. Her impatience trembles the house.

***

When Akio beds her, Anthy allows her mind to drift. It feels like dreaming—like what she remembers of dreaming. She sees roses and doves and dolls with broken limbs. She digs her hands into the knives of her bed. She only draws blood when she finds herself drifting too far away.

“You’re so beautiful,” Akio says, framing her breasts with narrow hands. She accepts the praise. She accepts him as she always has.

She may be Utena’s bride, but her beauty is for Akio alone.

***

That night, Akio has a dream.

Anthy does not know what is. He rolls in his sleep, lips twisted in a smirk. She leaves him tangled in the sheets, his limbs askew.

She stands naked in the window.

The stars are out. There's nothing beautiful in them tonight. They titter and gossip, pointing fingers at the scape of her bared skin. They paint a perfect darkness with metallic bitterness.

“I hate you,” Anthy whispers.

Or perhaps she doesn't. It's become so hard to tell, these days.

She presses both hands to the hole in her breast. She's felt the edges of the shocking gap a dozen times, a thousand, memorized each crack and crevice. Still, it takes her by surprise to find it there. The weight of steal in her stomach—the slash of a knife so strong it must bleed felt in her every step. She's borne the pain so long it no longer hurts her, but the emptiness still takes her breath away.

She wonders what would happen if she reached inside herself—could she touch the swords of hate? Could she pull herself free of her own prison?

No, no. She is the vessel of revolution, but she is not the one who plucks the flower.

***

Seasons pass. Rain falls and dries. The world spins dizzy on its axis. The earth could crack and the sky could bleed, but in the greenhouse, it is and will always be paradise.

She strokes a bloom. She wonders if it can taste the difference between rain and water. If it would bloom so sweetly if it had known how to be wild, once, before being trapped behind glass. Perhaps it would long to escape. Or perhaps it would bloom all the sweeter. There is freedom in the absence of autonomy. Someone who can clip and train your spines for you, who can make you a weapon or a toy or a work of art without you ever having to weigh the consequence yourself. Who will give you all you need, in return for your compliance.

There are benefits to being caged.

She still watches the stars, sometimes. She presses her face to the glass and peers out. Children play and pass in brightness and beauty. They titter and gossip, gasp and laugh and run under the sun. It makes her burn with envy. It makes her quake with loss.

It's better that she stays inside.

***

Roses do not make choices. If they could, she thinks there would be fewer thorns.

**Author's Note:**

> I am so glad to finally have this posted. I've spent like three months editing this (actually I've been editing right up to the minutes before hitting post, it's become a bit excessive). I've also spent considerable amount of time wondering if anyone even reads fic about a show that ended over a decade ago. BUT! Then I realized that I am a person who still reads fic about a show that ended over a decade ago, so there's gotta be at least one other person out there, right?
> 
> Additional note for my friend Shana: Shana! Look! I finally wrote a fic for a show you've watched! (I mean I kind of made you watch it, but still.) SHOWER ME WITH PRAISE!!!


End file.
